Privatisation : Robbing the People's Wealth

Abstract

This is the first publication of the Trade Union Left Forum. We hope it will contribute to a deeper understanding of the politics necessary to revitalise the trade union movement, defend our members’ rights, and help in building the necessary coalition of forces to resist privatisation—the selling of the people’s wealth to private corporate interests, most of all to monopolies beyond national or democratic accountability.

The first section of the pamphlet deals with the underlying politics, the ideology of privatisation as embraced by the main political parties in Dáil Éireann and reinforced by the European Union and its agencies. It shows how the system is driven by its own imperatives and stagnation to reduce the space and the role of public enterprise, further increasing the commodification of every aspect of people’s economic, social, political and cultural needs.

The analysis draws on both Irish and international experience of privatisation and its social impact on working people. It presents clearly the arguments against privatisation and why it is in all our interests—members and the public—to oppose it for the common good.

The second part of the pamphlet draws on the practical experience of the ESB and shows the important role of theESB and the detrimental effect that the policy decisions of the present and past governments have had on the company and on the wider Irish society.